Congress Leaves Long List Of Problems Unresolved As It Begins Summer Holiday

August 17, 1986|By STEVEN V. ROBERTS, The New York Times

WASHINGTON -- As Congress rushed for the doors and its summer holiday early Saturday, its members could point to some notable accomplishments.

But a longer list of pressing problems was left unresolved, and a cloud of tension and frustration hung over Capitol Hill as the legislators adjourned, looking ahead to an election less than three months away that would determine control of the Senate and the fate of President Reagan`s programs.

Capitol Hill has resembled a tug-of-war this summer, but the teams are constantly changing.

Often it has been Congress on one side and the White House on other as the lawmakers try to appeal to the voters, and the administration seems increasingly concerned with global arguments and the judgment of history. At other times, the rope has been grasped by Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other, each pulling for partisan advantage.

As one Democratic aide put it recently: ``It`s gotten to be almost like guerrilla warfare around here.``

In an important sense, the tug-of-war is taking place on Reagan`s home field. After almost six years in office, he has shaped basic values that many lawmakers no longer question. They fight over how to cut the budget, not how to add to it. They struggle over how much to limit his space-based missile defense program, not whether to eliminate it. They carefully examine his judicial nominees, but with one exception have approved them.

Yet on many specific issues, the president seems increasingly out of step with Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, and the White House team is having trouble holding its ground.

As for last week`s legislative scorecard: the Senate gave final approval to the president`s request for $100 million in aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, then endorsed, despite his strong opposition, stiff sanctions against the government of South Africa. The House completed action on a huge measure outlining military programs for 1987. Early Saturday morning, both chambers passed a temporary increase in the national debt ceiling, to $2.11 trillion, that would allow the government to borrow money until mid-September.

On the negative side, only three of the 13 annual appropriations bills, which permit the government to actually spend money, have passed both chambers. Not one has become law.

A measure that would repair last year`s budget-balancing legislation, a key provision of which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, never reached a House-Senate conference; a last-minute attempt to attach the revision to the temporary debt ceiling bill was shelved by the House. Legislation to carry out deficit reductions mandated by the budget law foundered. Tax writers from both houses struggled for weeks toward a compromise on a tax overhaul bill, and worked into the weekend after their colleagues had left town. Trade legislation remains stalled in the Senate; two weeks ago, the House failed to override a veto of a bill setting new textile quotas.

The elections of 1986 have also soured relations between the administration and the Congress. A good example is the military spending bill.

Reagan continues to insist that the nation`s security, as well as its bargaining position with the Soviet Union, requires continuing increases for the Pentagon. But many lawmakers are convinced that the broad consensus that supported Reagan`s military buildup during his first term has been corroded by a combination of budget pressures and horror stories about waste. Even Republican candidates are running commercials this year denouncing the Pentagon for spending $600 on toilet seats.

Accordingly, the House adopted a series of amendments that slashed spending for the president`s space-based missile defense system; delayed testing of nerve gas and anti-satellite weapons, and mandated adherence to the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty of 1979.